Newspaper ads misled cruise customers about prices

The Advertising Standards Authority supported a complaint made by a member of the public against an advertisement placed by Gill’s Cruise Centre. The advert offered a “half-price” world cruise with P&O but the ASA decided that the pre-discount price (£14,651 per person) quoted was misleading, because although it had been fairly calculated: taking the full brochure price and adding a fuel surcharge, there was no evidence that the full brochure price for the cruise had been charged, let alone paid, by any customer. The ASA also said that the half-price on offer had not been fairly calculated because the £7,389 did not include the fuel surcharge that was calculated into the original full price and which would add nearly £500 to the cost quoted.